Violet Cream Cupcakes

Both my mum and I are huge fans of Rose and Violet creams. We usually buy each other a box for birthday and Christmas presents. Dark chocolate covering rose and violet flavoured centres. Yummy!

The supermarket we visit on holiday in Spain sells rose jam and violet jam (made in France). Two years ago I used the rose jam to make Turkish delight cupcakes. In May I bought a jar of violet jam this time with a view to using it to make a cake for my mum's birthday. I decided not to make a cake though as violet is a unique taste and not one everyone likes, so I decided to make cupcakes instead and I only made 6. I baked chocolate cupcakes using my devil's food recipe but flavoured it with violet flavouring (I bought it in Lakeland).

I filled the centres of the cupcakes with the violet jam then topped with plain buttercream coloured purple. I decided not to add any flavouring to the buttercream as there was enough violet flavour in the cupcake batter and jam. 

If you really can't stand violets or can't get your hands on the jam, this recipe works perfectly for any jam you'd like in the centre of your cupcakes. You could even use marmalade and flavour your cake batter with orange essence. Lakeland sells loads of different flavourings you could use.

The recipe here makes 12 cupcakes 

50g cocoa powder

100g dark brown muscovado sugar

250 ml boiling water

125g soft unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

225g plain flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 large eggs

15-20 drops of violet flavouring 

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250g very soft butter

500g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 170c fan.

Put the cocoa and dark muscovado sugar into a bowl and pour in the boiling water. Whisk to mix, then set aside. 

Cream the butter and caster sugar together, beating well until pale and fluffy then add the violet flavouring.

Measure the flour, baking powder and bicarb together in another bowl, and set aside for a moment. Add 1 egg to the creamed butter and sugar, followed by a scoopful of flour mixture, then the second egg. Keep mixing and incorporate the rest of the dried ingredients for the cupcakes, then finally mix and fold in the cocoa mixture, scraping the bowl well with a spatula.

It's a runny batter so I used a spoon to fill the muffin cases until 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean then leave to cool reading for filling and frosting.

You can now make the buttercream. Beat together butter and icing sugar until combined then beat for a good 5 minutes until it lightens in colour. If it's too stiff add a splash of milk. Then mix in some purple colouring (I use gel colours)

I have a cupcake corer (check me out!) so I used that to take the middles out of the cupcakes. If you don't have one just use a knife to cut the centres out. Fill each cupcake centre with the jam then pipe each one with buttercream.

Happy birthday Mum!!xx